Forget
about Noah’s Ark; There Was No
Worldwide Flood

In
order to even entertain the
possibility of a worldwide
flood, one has to bypass all
laws of physics, exit the
realm of science, and enter
into the realm of the
miraculous, which many
believers are willing to do.

Many
people have contacted me about
the recent claims by a group
called Noah’s Ark
Ministries International.1
The evangelical organization
claims to have discovered
Noah’s ark.2
I have responded on several
occasions to these dubious
claims on my blog.3
And still, this group has stood
behind their claim,4
insisting that what they have
found is real based largely on
the belief that because the
Bible says the flood and the ark
are historical, it must be so.
So, instead of addressing their
spurious claims yet again, I
thought I would approach the
issue from a different angle:
forget about Noah’s ark; there
was no world-wide flood.

The
worldwide flood described in
Genesis 6-9 is not historical,
but rather a combination of at
least two flood stories, both of
which descended from earlier
Mesopotamian flood narratives.
Note that this does not mean all
of the claims made in the Bible
are false (or true for that
matter); I am dealing here only
with the biblical stories of the
flood. (Also understand that the
“slippery slope” claim of
“all of the Bible is true or
none of it is true” is simply
an unnecessary rhetorical device
designed to keep readers from
doing precisely what scholars do
every day: analyze each claim in
the Bible on a case-by-case
basis. It is not necessary to
accept an “all or none”
stance towards the Bible.)

Most
biblical and ancient Near
Eastern scholars argue that the
flood is a mythical story
adopted from earlier
Mesopotamian flood accounts.
These earlier accounts include
the 17th century BCE Sumerian
flood myth Eridu Genesis,5
the 18th century BCE Akkadian
Atra-Hasis Epic,6
and the Epic of Gilgamesh,7
which are some of the earliest
known examples of a literary
style of writing. The most
complete version of the Epic of
Gilgamesh known today is
preserved on 12 clay tablets
from the library of Assyrian
king Ashurbanipal (685-627 BCE).
This extant Akkadian version is
derived from earlier Sumerian
versions. In the story,
Gilgamesh and his companion, a
wild man-beast named Enkidu,
travel the world on a number of
quests that ultimately displease
the gods. After the death of
Enkidu, Gilgamesh embarks on a
journey to learn the secret of
eternal life by visiting the
immortal flood hero, Utnapishtim.
Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh how
the god Ea (equivalent to the
Sumerian god Enki) revealed the
gods’ plan to destroy all life
with a great flood, and how they
instructed him to build a vessel
in which he could save his
family, friends, and livestock.
After the flood, the gods
repented for destroying the
world and made Utnapishtim
immortal.

These
flood stories appear to have
been transmitted to the
Israelites early in Israel’s
history. Contact between the
Assyrians and the Israelites is
known from the conquest of
Israel and its capitol, Samaria,
in 721 BCE by Assyrian King
Shalmaneser V (727-722 BCE),8
and from the attempted conquest
of Jerusalem by the Assyrian
King Sennacherib (704-681 BCE).
These stories were apparently
modified to conform to a
monotheistic faith, but retained
characteristics such as the
destruction of nearly all living
things via a flood, the
salvation of a select few people
and animals by the construction
of a boat, and the regret of the
deity for the flood, prompting a
promise not to do so again.
Thus, like many of the early
stories in Israel’s primordial
history,9
the flood story appears to be an
adaptation and integration of a
previously known myth into the
theology of Israel.

Most
scholars will point out that the
biblical flood story is actually
two flood epics intertwined into
one. However, unlike the two
biblical creation stories
(Genesis 1:1-2:4a and Genesis
2:4b-25), which were set one
after the other in the Hebrew
Bible, the two original flood
stories appear to have been
edited into a single narrative.
The combined story preserves
vestigial indicators that the
account was originally two
separate narratives. For
example, Genesis 6:19-20 states
that there were to be one pair
of species each animal on the
ark, one male and one female:

And
of every living thing, of all
flesh, you shall bring two of
every kind into the ark, to keep
them alive with you; they shall
be male and female. Of the birds
according to their kinds, and of
the animals according to their
kinds, of every creeping thing
of the ground according to its
kind, two of every kind shall
come in to you, to keep them
alive.

However,
in Genesis 7:2-3, which was
originally a separate flood
account, it states:

Take
with you seven pairs of all
clean animals, the male and
its mate; and a pair of the
animals that are not clean,
the male and its mate; and
seven pairs of the birds of
the air also, male and female,
to keep their kind alive on
the face of all the earth.

Thus,
there are two different numbers
given for the number of animals
on the ark: one pair (male and
female) in Genesis 6, and seven
pairs of clean and one pair of
unclean (male and female) in
Genesis 7. The integration of
two different numbers is
evidence of two originally
separate flood accounts.

Likewise,
Genesis 7:17 states that the
flood lasted 40 days:

The
flood continued forty days
on the earth; and the waters
increased, and bore up the
ark, and it rose high above
the earth.

But
Genesis 7:24, a portion of the
second flood story, states that
the flood remained for 150 days:

And
the waters swelled on the earth
for one hundred fifty days.

Shortly
thereafter in Genesis 8:6, the
story switches back to the first
flood story, and the number 40
returns:

At
the end of forty days Noah
opened the window of the ark
that he had made.

Thus,
not only are different numbers
used for the number of animals
on the ark in the two Hebrew
flood stories, but different
time periods were given for the
flooding after the rains: 40 and
150 days.

Further
evidence for the presence of two
flood stories comes from the
fact that in the narratives that
speak about 40 days of flooding,
god is referred to as the divine
name YHWH, which supposedly was
not revealed to readers until
the episode of the burning bush
in Exodus 3. However, in the
portions of the flood texts that
refer to 150 days of flooding,
god is referred to as elohim,
the Hebrew word for “god.”
The two different Hebrew flood
narratives refer to god by
different names rather
consistently. Thus, the textual
evidence demonstrates that two
flood narratives, most likely
derived from earlier Assyrian
and Sumerian flood narratives,
were combined and adapted to fit
the Israelite’s monotheistic
faith and communicate lessons of
a wrathful, destructive god, a
regretful (Genesis 6:6) yet
repentant god, and the origin of
rainbows.10

But
for some, the literary evidence
is not compelling. So, allow me
present some scientific
evidence: there could not have
been a worldwide flood as
described in the Bible because
there is simply not enough water
in the earth’s atmospheric
system to produce such a flood.

According
to data from the U.S. Geological
Survey, the amount of water in
the earth’s atmosphere could
not possibly cover the earth.11
In fact:

One
estimate of the volume of
water in the atmosphere at any
one time is about 3,100 cubic
miles (mi3) or
12,900 cubic kilometers (km3).
That may sound like a lot, but
it is only about 0.001 percent
of the total Earth’s water
volume of about 332,500,000 mi3
(1,385,000,000 km3)

If
all of the water in the
atmosphere rained down at once,
it would only cover the ground
to a depth of 2.5 centimeters,
about 1 inch.

Additionally,
because only 1.7% of the
earth’s water is stored
underground,12
there is not nearly enough water
in groundwater storage beneath
the earth’s surface to account
for the amount of water
necessary to flood the entire
earth to the extent described in
the Bible.

Simply
put: there is not enough water
in Earth’s atmosphere to raise
the ocean’s levels over an
inch, much less to cover Mt.
Ararat with water from 40 days
of rain. There is simply not
that much water in the system.

Thus,
in order to even entertain the
possibility of a worldwide
flood, one has to bypass all
laws of physics, exit the realm
of science, and enter into the
realm of the miraculous, which
many biblical literalists are
willing to do. It is
hypothetically possible that,
say, the polar ice caps melted.
This could raise the ocean
levels beyond the 2.5
centimeters that all the
earth’s atmospheric water
could were it to all rain down,
but even then the thaw would
only slightly affect the
world’s coastlines.
Additionally, all scientific
evidence points to larger polar
ice caps in recent history, not
smaller.13

Other
fantastic scenarios could be
offered to explain the flood.
For instance, some might suggest
that a colossal ice-asteroid
could have burst into our orbit
and melted, bringing with it an
unconscionable amount of water
into our atmosphere. But, even
this desperate scenario poses a
major problem for many biblical
literalists who attempt to
explain or prove the flood
scientifically. The Bible says
it “rained” and the
“springs of the deep”
opened, but mentions nothing
about an asteroid. Likewise,
were water to enter Earth’s
system, where did it all go? To
where did the water recede?
Earth’s water cycle results in
all water residing somewhere on
Earth’s surface in the form of
oceans, ice, and freshwater
lakes, beneath Earth’s surface
in subterranean reservoirs that
produce springs and geysers, or
in Earth’s atmosphere as
moisture. So even if water could
enter Earth’s closed system,
where did it go?

Simply
put: there is no evidence
whatsoever for a worldwide
flood. In other words, it’s
impossible. There is not enough
water in the earth’s
atmospheric system to even come
close to covering all of the
earth’s landmasses.

It
is time for Christians to admit
that some of the stories in
Israel’s primordial history
are not historical. It is ok to
concede that these stories were
crafted in a pre-scientific
period and were designed to
offer ethical answers to
questions of why and not
questions of how. Christians and
Jews must concede that the Bible
can still be “inspired”
without being historically or
scientifically “inerrant.”
As the early church father
Origen explained regarding the
preservation of empirical truth
within problematic documents
edited by human hands, “the
spiritual truth was often
preserved, as one might say, in
material falsehood.”14
Simply because a factual error
exists in the text of the Bible
does not mean that an ethical
truth or principal cannot still
be conveyed. It is time for
Christians to concede that
“inspiration” does not equal
“inerrancy,” and that
“biblical” does not equal
“historical” or even
“factual.” Some claims like
the flood and the six-day
creation are neither historical
nor factual; they were written
to communicate in an
pre-scientific literary form
that god is responsible for the
earth. It is time Christians
conceded that there was no
flood. It is time for Reformed
Theological Seminary to concede
that Bruce Waltke has a point.15
It is time for groups of
evangelical amateurs to stop
making sensational claims about
discoveries they did not really
make. And it is time for people
to stop looking for Noah’s
ark.

9
For instance, compare the
story of Balaam in Numbers
22-24 with the text of the
Deir ‘Alla inscription,
which was painted on the wall
of a building in Deir ‘Alla
Jordan and dates to around
840-760 BCE. http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Deir-Alla_Inscription,_750%E2%80%93700_BCE